As I was not sure whether the TWR PANI (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India) would resort under TWR CAMENA or TWR Asia I sent both of them a reception report.
Three weeks ago I shared the QSL email received via Mr. Kalman Dobos of TWR CAMENA. Last week I received the eQSL card for my report sent via the TWR Asia webform. Unfortunately, as was the case with the other confirmation, the QSL gave no other information about the QTH than the station ID “CAE”. This stands for “Central Asia East” according to attached information which did include the 1467 kHz schedule.
Author: Peter Reuderink (Page 20 of 45)
If I’m not mistaken this was my 3rd attempt to get this nice QSL for XSX Keelung Radio 12577 kHz. I sent my report to klgmdss@ms1.hinet.net .
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of info about Keelung Radio on the internet. So I will finish this post with my QSL from 1982 from Keelung Radio, when we were still searching the bands for VVV and CQ markers in CW:
I got a friendly email to QSL Skagen Skipperskole (Martec) Skagen, Denmark, on 8414.5 kHz. Yes, Skipperskole is Skipper School in English, witnessing the Danish influence on the English language which, as most of you probably know, goes back to the Viking era.
Mr. Andersen, principal of the school was so kind to answer my reception report. I sent it to martec@martec.dk and acta@martec.dk. The Skipperskole is part of MarTec a polytechnical education institute in Skagen, a harbor city in the most northern tip of Denmark.
The DSC transmission to a fictive MMSI 999999999 was made as part of a training session in which not only Danish students, but also students from Portugal, Sweden and Panama participated. I’m very pleased with this QSL, if only because I am a huge fan of any real technical study whatsoever. We need more technically educated people!
It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to receive Skipperskole Skagen if it wasn’t for the fact that these training sessions are not an everyday event. So you have to be lucky. And if you are dependent on night time propagation you do have bad luck, as the courses are probably day time only.
Other schools that I know off that have DSC transmissions as part of their curriculum are Bergen and Tromso in Norway, but I never got an answer from the latter one on my reception report.
A station that I received quite often this year was WZAN “The Outlaw” from Portland, Maine, USA on 970 kHz. They are listed with only 5 kilowatts, but their – for us DX-ers excellent – location on the Atlantic coast most likely makes up for that. This can easily be seen on the night-time coverage maps published on the interesting Radio Locator website:
Mr. Phil Zachary from the Portland Radio Group replied to my reception report by email. He mentioned that they get quite a few reports from DX-ers.
In 2019 the stations changed from ESPN sports to its current “classic country” format, branded as “The Outlaw”.
Mr. Zamperin, Morning show Host and Assistant director was so kind to send an email QSL for CHML 900 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
The shut down of many European AM broadcasters makes life easier for us medium wave DX-ers. But on this frequency Saudi Arabia hits the back of my loop antenna with 400 kW strong Holy Quran chants. So in the end I switched to the MW circle KiWiSDR in Clashmore, Scotland to collect enough details for my report.
This blog is about listening to the radio and not only about the reception of QSLs. So I’d like to share this nice surprise.
Aasiaat Radio in Greenland was my most remote log on 2187.5 kHz. Until last night when all of a sudden Bangkok Radio from Thailand showed up on DX-Atlas. I have received Bangkok Radio a couple of times on 12 Mhz but never on 2 MHz.
With a DSC message they responded to a test call from bulk carrier “BASS” near Banda Aceh on its way from Sikka, India to Singapore.
Unfortunately I don’t have an email address of Bangkok Radio, and I couldn’t find recent QSLs on the internet. But if you have info, feel free to drop it in the comments.
I received a fully detailed email QSL from WWKB “The Bet” on 1520 kHz from Buffalo, NY, USA. WWKB follows a trend in which more and more stations use a catchy name. Since 2021 they brand themselves as “The Bet 1520” as they focus on sports gambling. I heard quite a few “BetMGM” commercials.
Receiving a Transatlantic station might be a challenge, getting their QSL is another one. The websites of the stations are often blocked for IP addresses outside Europe, so you have to use a VPN connection. But even then often the only contact opportunity granted is via a web form. This makes it difficult to personalize your reception report and impossible to include a MP3 recording. And so far I had poor experience in getting a reply. But as you can see, Kevin Carr from WWKB did reply with a nicely detailed email within a day.
In the last few days I enjoyed pretty good Transatlantic medium wave conditions. This resulted in a couple of QSLs that I will post in the coming days. The QSL for WJR 760 Detroit, Michigan, USA, is the first of those. Mr. Keith Bosworth, regional director of engineering for the Cumulus Group was so kind to confirm my reception with full details:
Whenever you receive a station with a three letter call-sign you can bet it is an older station with a great legacy. The roots of WJR go back to May 4th, 1922, albeit under the call-sign WCX. That is only 5 months after December 1st, 1921. On this date the US government adopted regulations formally defining “broadcasting stations”. The wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz) was designated for entertainment broadcasts, while 485 meters (619 kHz) was reserved for broadcasting official weather and other government reports (source: Wikipedia).
WCX obtained a license for both frequencies. With a fast growing number of stations competition was fierce. Stations in the same region had to “time-share”. It took until 2023 when a band running from 550 to 1350 kHz was opened for broadcast activities. But even then WCX had to time-share on 580 kHz with WWJ from Detroit. This situation lasted until 1925, when WWJ was assigned to 850 kHz. That was also the year in which the Jewett Radio & Phonograph Company received a license for a new station. The letters of the call-sign letter WJR apparently refer to this company. This company took over WCX and the call-sign WJR survived until today.
The studios are still located in the Fisher Building, a “sky scraper” in Art Deco style, built in 1928. The antennas on top of the building relay the signals to the transmitter site.
Austro Control sent a nice fullly detailed QSL. I got my QSL NDB GRZ-290 via info@austrocontrol.at . The beacon was located on Graz Airport in Austria.
And yes: “was located”. Because this is another NDB that can’t be heard anymore. More and more of them are taken out of service, as they are deemed obsolete as modern VOR and GPS systems are now available to support navigation.
NDB GRZ was taken off the air on September 7th, 2023. Fortunately I still had a Pskov recording from its final month of operation. I guess I better hurry to get my other Austrian NDBs QSLed.
Pretty amazing… today I’m running this blog for a year now. When I started I still had no idea what to expect from taking on my DX hobby again. A year later I have written 246 posts. And it means that I must have received around 250 QSLs as well!
More importantly is probably that made a couple of new DX friends through this blog. It is definitely true that modern communication tools have impacted our hobby. But it is not all bad as we can share and discuss our results “real time”.
To celebrate the anniversary I dug in my QSL collection to add some party decorations to this post… Thanks for reading my posts and leaving your comments!
73s, Peter